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Pips squeak for the poor

Bills, bills and more bills. If the new year financial hangover feels worse than usual, that is because it is. The tax burden on average salaries is at its highest since records began, official figures show, having risen steadily under Labour. Higher taxes and rising inflation mean that incomes are growing by barely more than 1%. This is not so much a “feelgood” factor as a “feeling badly squeezed” reality. The favoured few pocketing big City bonuses are doing very nicely but most people’s incomes are not keeping pace with inflation.

Remember “rip-off” Britain? It is back. International energy prices are falling. Wholesale gas prices are down by more than half since the summer. Try telling that to our utility firms and their toothless regulator. Domestic gas and electricity bills will not fall until after the winter at the earliest. World oil prices have tumbled but the petrol companies, who